We got through breakfast without any sign of Oliver. There was no sound from his room either and I certainly wasn’t going to knock on the door to wake him up. Actually, the way I was feeling I would happily have left him there for the cleaners to find.
Nancy and Vivienne were the first to leave, followed soon afterwards by Elaine.
Nick left just before ten-thirty. I think he was too well mannered to overstay the prescribed time. Even so he helped us load up the car. He hugged us both and tactfully I left Helena alone with him for a final farewell.
Last, of course, was Oliver.
His car turned up with minutes to spare, sweeping into the courtyard behind the house in a fine spray of gravel. At least she had remembered not to come to the front door this time. But then it wasn’t Pippa who got out to help Oliver with his cases. It was a stocky, handsome man with a lot of designer stubble and hair gel.
I think I looked as though I had been awake most of the night and I had an exclamation mark of ketchup down my shirt where I had juggled a box of groceries a bit carelessly. The newcomer was immaculate of course, striding up to the kitchen door in jeans and a strange tweed jacket with coloured buttons. Designer and horribly expensive I expect.
‘Hi,’ he drawled, looking around him with some interest at the rural setting. ‘Jake Mitchell. I’m hoping this is the right place. Have you got Oliver? I’ve come to take him back to civilization.’
I almost tugged my forelock. He reeked of big-city sophistication.
‘Yes, he should be ready,’ I said. ‘No Pippa today?’
‘No, she’s not on good form. Fell down the staircase at work.’
‘Gosh, I hope she’s OK?’ I said.
Suicide bid?
I imagined Pippa throwing herself dramatically down the stairs with a despairing cry at the prospect of having Oliver back.
‘Just hurt her wrist. It wasn’t that much of a fall either. More of a stumble. So has Oliver been behaving himself?’
‘Well, you know …’ I said vaguely.
‘Has he been writing?’ Jake said with more of an edge in his voice this time.
Strange question – after all he was a writer who came here to write.
‘Well, yes I think he has. He’s been in his room quite a bit. He read us a bit of what he’d done last night.’
Jake looked at me with greater interest. ‘What? Did he? Did he really? Did he say how he had been getting on? I mean the word count, you know?’
‘No, not really,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t tell me a thing like that! But he did say he had a deadline for something.’
The newcomer followed me into the kitchen and stood, hands in pockets, as he looked around. I offered him coffee, which he refused with easy charm. Helena and I carried on packing things up and bang on the dot of ten-thirty, Oliver’s bedroom door opened. He stumped out, pulling his suitcase behind him.
‘Ah, you’re here,’ he said as he saw Jake standing in the kitchen doorway, jangling his car keys.
‘Pippa said ten-thirty,’ Jake said, still grinning.
‘Right.’
‘Well?’ Jake said. ‘Did it work?’
Oliver shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘Any thoughts about – you know?’
This was very weird and mysterious.
They got his case into the back of the car between them and Oliver turned to wave at us.
I waved back and followed Helena into the house.
She started wiping the kitchen table and I stood, feeling cold and empty inside, watching her.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘he’s gone then.’
‘Yes,’ I said, sticking my hands into my jeans pockets, ‘and thank God he has. I’ve never been so glad to see the back of anyone in my life as Oliver bloody Forest.’
There was a noise behind me and I spun round. My stomach did an icy swoop of horror. Oliver was standing in the doorway. It seemed he had changed his mind and come back to say goodbye properly.
Bloody, bloody, bloody hell.
He shook Helena’s hand and reminded her about his agent friend. She agreed she would be sending her work off very soon.
He held out a hand for me to shake. His hand was warm; mine was freezing.
He must have heard me. He must have heard me.
‘It’s been surprising – good luck with everything,’ he said.
I said something; something stupid and pointless I expect and then he held my hand in his for a moment and leaned forward.
‘Thank you,’ he whispered.
He kissed my cheek and I felt his breath warm against my skin.
My mouth went dry and my knees were suddenly rather wobbly.
I watched as he got into the car, closed the door, and after a second Jake started the engine, reached behind him to pull on his seat belt, and drove away.
‘Wow, he kissed you! Perhaps he didn’t hear what you said after all?’ Helena said.
I was still standing looking at the place where Jake’s car had been parked only a moment ago.
‘Well of course he did. Oh fuckity fuck, just great. Bollocking bollocks!’ I said. ‘I’ll never learn to shut up will I?’
‘I thought he loosened up by the end of the week,’ Helena said. ‘I mean he was almost OK in the end. And giving me that agent’s card! Wasn’t it incredible?’
‘Yes, it was. Very kind. Oh well, we’d better get on with it. Have you checked the bedrooms?’
‘All except Oliver’s.’
My stomach gave a plunge. I couldn’t think of anything worse than looking around Oliver’s room, seeing the dent in the pillow where he had rested his head, smelling the last traces of his aftershave.
‘Can you do it? I’ll load up the last of the food boxes and start the dishwasher.’
Helena nodded. ‘OK. If you don’t mind?’
‘I don’t mind. I just want to get home.’
I went and checked the dining room one last time and replaced The Dirty Road onto the bookcase. I’d been dipping in and out of it and really quite enjoying it. Perhaps I should read the others?
I put my hand up to touch my cheek. Why had he kissed me?
Chapter Eleven
Finishing a successful writing retreat and being back in my odd little house were usually things to make me feel good. I think I might hide my insecurity by being a bit of a feeder, but I like people and I get on with most of them. Oliver had been an exception. And actually, if I thought about it a little bit more deeply, there were things about Oliver I had liked too; not least his good looks.
Perhaps he had been wary of us to start with, but then again the warning signs were there. He’d become famous very quickly; he was well used to people wanting stuff from him. But he did treat his PA as though she was dirt. That couldn’t be excused, surely? On the other hand, he had been quite nice to us on the last evening.
And he had kissed me.
And? Oh I don’t know.
I wandered around enjoying my eclectic collection of furniture and colourful junk, the sort of vintage stuff I kept acquiring even though I had decided I was going to be minimalist from now on. Somewhere I had heard it was a good idea to throw fifteen things away every week. Or was it every day? I couldn’t throw fifteen things away every day, surely? Otherwise by the end of the year I’d have nothing left and would be back to slopping around in my Ugg boots and pj’s.
I unpacked my case and checked the post that had arrived while I was away. There was nothing interesting; there never is. I hadn’t recorded anything entertaining to watch on the television because there isn’t anything and even the jolly couple in The Olde Stables next door who were usually good for a laugh during a boring evening had gone on holiday that morning. I had agreed to look after their cat and there were several tins of cat food on my back doorstep to remind me. I went and fed it before I forgot and received a dirty look from it as a reward.
Then I packed away my case, put my laundry into the washing machine, and checked my emails. Then I had a c
up of coffee. And several chocolate Hobnobs I didn’t need. They were ten minutes away from being stale anyway. It would have been far better if I had put them in the bin rather than me. With my ‘nearly ten and a half stone’ body. Bloody cheek.
I looked at the bathroom scales and almost got on but then thought better of it. Spontaneous weighing never ends well in my experience.
I checked my emails again and emptied my junk folder. Then I read my horoscope (Libra). It told me I was about to visit a magical location. As I was due back into work soon I thought this was unlikely. I decided I would be Gemini for the week instead, as they were going to have a ‘wonderful surprise associated with water’. Talking of water, it hadn’t stopped raining since Thursday night and I wasn’t looking forward to the walk to work at all.
I read the paper online, marvelled at the size of some female celebrity’s chest, and wondered if there was anything worth watching on TV. There wasn’t. Another of my wildly exciting evenings stretched ahead. It was all very well saying I should do thrilling things and take chances and have adventures but what if none presented themselves? Perhaps I should start ridding out my larder?
My mobile rang; it was Helena.
‘You’ll never guess!’ she said. She sounded as though she was about to burst with excitement.
‘Go on.’
‘Nick’s been on the phone already!’
‘Wow! What’s the news?’
‘We’re meeting up on Thursday evening. He’s going to come over and take me out for a meal. At La Mignonne.’
‘On a school night? You crazy kids!’
‘I know!’
La Mignonne was a horrifically expensive Michelin-starred restaurant, which neither of us had visited although we had scrolled through the sample menu on their website.
Vinny and Jade in the house next door to mine had been there for their wedding anniversary last summer and brought me back an evening’s menu card: £145 for seven courses, none of them bigger than a sparrow. Actual sparrow wasn’t on the menu of course. Well I don’t think so. You never know these days.
‘You’d better eat before you go then if what my neighbours told me was true. All delicious but not exactly filling.’
‘Never mind, I’ll be far too nervous to eat! What shall I wear?’ she squeaked.
‘Dress or trousers?’
‘Dress.’
‘The black lace one?’
‘Hmmmm, maybe.’
‘The brown one, with the squiggly pattern?’
‘I’ve gone off it. Anyway it’s too short.’
‘You’ve got great legs!’ I said. She has too.
‘I mean it will be too cold. What about the flowery one? Blue and white?’
‘I think it’s a bit summery. You need something snuggly. Grey cashmere with a faux fur collar.’
‘Not with my faux overdraft,’ Helena said. ‘Are there any sales on?’
‘He won’t care what you wear. You could turn up in your painting trousers and he wouldn’t notice.’
‘I’ll have to go shopping. Come with me?’
‘Yes of course – when do you want to go?’
‘When it stops raining?’ she said. She gave a hefty sigh. ‘So the middle of March the way things are going. The end of our road was flooded when I got back. And the school playing fields. You?’
‘I haven’t looked. I’ve just been unpacking.’
‘I haven’t bothered yet. I came in and started writing. I seem to have got into the groove since Oliver gave me that agent’s card. I’m going to send her my first three chapters and a synopsis when I’ve had a chance to double-check it.’
‘Will you mention Oliver?’
‘Of course! He said I could after all.’
We chatted on for a few minutes with her twittering about Nick and what she had said on the phone and what he had said and what did I think he meant by that? Exactly the sort of conversation I could have had with her when we were both fifteen.
She rang off so she could trawl through the clothing websites and fret a bit more. Meanwhile, I went into the kitchen and peered into the fridge hoping to find something nourishing and unexpected. All I found was pregnant-looking yogurt, a heel of cheese, and an exhausted head of broccoli. I’d have to go out.
Going out was not something I wanted to do as the rain was still splattering viciously against the diamond-pane windows. Instead I chipped the frost off a pizza hiding at the bottom of the freezer and chucked it in the oven with no great hopes it would emerge much improved.
I was sitting on the sofa still mindlessly chewing it when the phone rang again. It was my mother.
‘So did you have fun?’ she said.
‘It went well,’ I said. ‘Very, you know, interesting.’
‘Hmm, when people say a thing has been interesting in that tone of voice it generally wasn’t,’ she said.
‘No, it was. We had a well-known author turn up too.’
‘Oooh, who? Do I know her?’
‘Him. Oliver Forest better known as Ross Black.’
‘Never heard of either of them. Josie has been on the phone. She wants us to go and see the boys in their school play. You can come too; after all she has oodles of room.’
‘That would be nice,’ I said without any real enthusiasm.
My sister Josie likes to pretend she is almost a suffragette because she refused to marry Mark when she got pregnant with the twins, but it doesn’t stop her from living in a six-bedroom house paid for by her accountant partner while she spends all her time having lunch with friends and buying handbags.
‘I might stay on with her for a few days. I’m going to have the hall decorated and you know I can’t stand the smell of paint. If you got your spare room sorted out I could stay with you. I mean you’ve got all that beautiful bed linen from Nan and how much does a bed cost? And if you cleared out the spare room …’
‘Clearing out the spare room is exactly what I plan to do. I’ve drawn up a list of things I want to achieve.’
‘That sounds excellent news.’
Actually, if I was honest it probably wouldn’t be that much fun to visit Josie because Finnegan and Hector had spent the last eight years without any obvious discipline in their lives and were exhausting. My sister has the same lack of culinary ability as our mother and as far as the boys were concerned any food that didn’t come in cardboard containers was regarded with the utmost suspicion. When I visited they liked to stand silently on the other side of the breakfast bar and watch me cooking as though I was performing some dark art.
‘Excellent, that’s what I hoped you would say,’ Mum said. ‘I expect Josie will ring you later when she gets in. So any movement on the boyfriend front?’
The first deadly question. She made it sound as though a new boyfriend could be ordered on Amazon and delivered twenty-four hours later with a forklift truck.
Sign here; solvent, reasonably well-behaved man for you, Madam.
‘I don’t need a man,’ I said perkily. ‘I have my work. You were the one with the A Woman Needs a Man like a Fish Needs a Bicycle T-shirt when I was growing up, remember?’
Mum made a sort of scoffing noise. ‘What about taking out the recycling though? And the spiders in the bath?’
‘Are you quite sane? I do both of those things,’ I said.
‘Well Josie doesn’t. Mark does things like that. Men do have some uses. And Finn and Hector are of course lovely but I’d quite like some granddaughters before I’m too old to enjoy them.’
‘So you want me to find a man so he can take the bins out and provide you with the excuse to buy tiny dresses from Monsoon?’
‘Children are a great comfort and a blessing,’ Mum said piously.
‘Bollocks, I’ll give you three hours before you are volunteering to take Josie’s dog out for a walk so you can get away from the comfort of dear little Finn and the blessing that is Hector and go to the wine bar at the end of their road.’
‘Nonsense. How’s the die
t going?’
The Diet. The second deadly question.
First The Boyfriend and now The Diet.
The Diet was almost an entity in its own right that had been following me around, tugging at my clothing like a persistent toddler for years.
My name is Billie Summers and I’m a carbohydrate junkie.
‘Fine, absolutely great,’ I said with more confidence than I felt.
‘Good, when you lose that last stone I’ll buy you a dress. You could do it by Easter if you try. Look, I’ll tell Josie we’ll be there, OK?’
‘Fine. And you could always go and stay with Uncle Peter, if you would just make up?’
Mum ignored the suggestion as she always does when a difficult topic arises.
‘You’re not flooded then?’
‘No, should I be?’
‘Oh I just heard there had been some flooding round by you. Anyway, thanks for the call. Must dash. I’ll be in touch.’
‘You rang me,’ I said, but she’d rung off.
The phone rang again almost immediately.
‘It’s me. Maybe I should wear trousers?’ Helena said, continuing our previous conversation as though an hour hadn’t passed.
‘Yes, why not?’ I said through a mouthful of cold, leathery pepperoni.
‘Not jeans, obvs. But maybe some smart trousers with a white shirt? No, the last time I wore that everyone thought I was a waitress. Smart trousers with a sweater? I’ve got the green fluffy one with the big roll neck. But it might be boiling in there and I’d be too hot. And I could hardly take it off halfway through the meal.’
‘Well not unless you want to give him the green light for later?’
‘Billie! Really! What about the blue shirt?’
One advantage of being friends for so long is that I know Helena’s wardrobe almost as well as my own.
‘Yes it would be fine.’ I flicked through a few more television channels, pausing to watch an enormously fat American woman get onto some scales and burst into tears.
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